


Ladder Sights

by houliheller



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Awkwardness, F/M, Perversion, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:49:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28458564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/houliheller/pseuds/houliheller
Summary: Cloud learns not to look up when climbing a ladder.
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife
Comments: 7
Kudos: 85





	Ladder Sights

The first time Cloud has to grapple with the problems of a ladder, he’s already on one.

Barret insists they climb the ladders all together, as a group - that it’s quicker and more efficient that way.

Cloud thinks that if one of the rusted bolts holding it in place gives, then they’re all going to fall to their death.

And being beneath both Barret and Tifa, if the fall doesn’t kill him, then being crushed by either of the two of them will.

This one’s long, all the way up the wall of a warehouse that overlooks a rail track. They needed to see the signalling lights beforehand, and this height was the only way they were going to know when the cargo train was coming through.

But Barret’s paused for one reason or another, muttering to Tifa about distance, and Cloud’s arms are starting to ache with the weight of his sword on his back.

“What’s taking so long?”

The muttering stops. “The ladder’s cut short.”

“What?” 

In the moment, Cloud looks up without thinking - not that it’s ever been a problem before, but he forgets that it’s Tifa that’s above him, _close_ above him, and, well…

When she has her legs braced against the ladder while the three of them wait in place, her skirt doesn’t do much to hide anything.

And for a few moments after, he can’t pull his eyes away and his brain seems intent on taking in every detail of what he’s just stumbled upon.

Thighs. Pale skin. Curves. Dark grey. Cotton.

Things that he shouldn't be able to see, and things which he still couldn't see that he shouldn't be envisioning.

Stop.

Now was not the time to be looking up.

And it was never the time to be staring.

Cloud flinches as he chastises himself, not indicating that he’s seen anything and instead pretending he had, somehow, luckily looked past her and to Barret.

He would just have to hope Tifa wouldn’t consider the implications of him looking up.

“How far is it to the roof?”

“Well, it’s looking like a bit of a stretch.” Barret huffs - this was just their luck. “Kind of a reach of faith.”

“We’ll be fine.” Tifa sounds impatient, and Cloud finds himself in concurrence.

Aching arms were the least of his problems now.

“Alright, then.” Barret seems to be psyching himself up. “Here goes!”

He sounds a noise of faith, and then the ladder shakes violently as he jumps from it and grips the edge of the roof with a single hand. Cloud’s grip to the rungs tightens, and he sighs irritatedly as Barret cries with triumph.

Though, he had to admit, pulling himself up with only an arm and two feet to a rung was quite the feat.

“That’s how you do it!” He spins about on his now grounded feet. “Come on, Tifa, your turn.”

The girl sighs. “Alright.” She shifts from her position, gratingly loud to Cloud’s now antsy mind, who follows her up as she climbs, continuing to look down, and readies herself on the final rung of the ladder. “Here goes.”

And Cloud feels a lot more nervous than when Barret had jumped.

Tifa leaps herself with a shake of the ladder, and then a small yelp sounds out, with grunted surprise from Barret and the scrape of hands scrambling to take a grip of the roof, but what Cloud doesn’t hear is the foot that jolts from its place on the ladder’s final rung, and he only realises it’s coming when it kicks him across the forehead, boot sole and all.

“Oh!”

It’s nearly enough to shake him loose from the ladder, just as he stares into the void that awaits him beneath; had he not been looking at the great drop, he might have been able to dodge her foot.

Tifa just about recovers from whatever happened - Cloud suspects she hadn’t made her footing on the last rung when she reached for the roof, and the ladder gives a final, worrying shake as she hoists herself safely onto the ledge. “I’m sorry, Cloud!”

“It’s alright.”

Cloud takes little time in getting off the ladder himself, mainly thanks to Barret, who has now elected to pull him up himself after Tifa nearly lost her balance, and soon enough he’s standing up on the ledge and dusting rust and debris off of his trousers.

And standing in front of a concerned looking Tifa.

He thought she would be thinking over her near-death experience instead, but she stands with her arms linked and with an empathetic expression. “I’m really sorry about the kick.”

Don’t think about it, Cloud. Not when she’s talking to you.

“It’s fine.” 

Tifa heeds Cloud’s words little, and with care in her eyes, she takes a short step closer to Cloud and reaches her hand to brush against the slightly inflamed spot where her foot had met his head.

“Does it hurt-?” 

“I’m fine-” When her fingertips splay his hair apart to accentuate their touch, Cloud thinks it far enough, and he takes a step back to quell the tension that’s building inside of him. “I’m fine.”

Don’t think about it.

“Okay.” Tifa smiles, and nods. “If you insist.”

* * *

“Barret, we should go up a ladder _one_ by _one_.”

“Just ‘cos you got a little kick to the head doesn’t mean we change how we do things.” Barret jabs at him from his barstool. “Maybe it’ll shake things up in there - put your head on straight.”

“And what if the ladder breaks?”

“And what if it does when there are people at the bottom?” He chuckles, gesturing behind him to the two at a table. “You think Tifa’s gonna catch you when you fall?”

“There are too many people on the ladder-”

“Are you leader on this?” He tilts his head. “Or are you here to get your pay?”

Cloud isn’t eager to answer, so he crosses his arms, resting them onto the bar’s surface, and leaves Barret to finish his speech as he looks away.

“You’re a merc, aren’t you?” Barret's words barrel with momentum. “So, you just listen to the hand that feeds, and then you’ll get your pay at the end of the day. Okay?”

“Fine.”

Barret seems unimpressed with his tone. “And this don’t end here, so I’m glad to inform you that you’ve just won yourself more of climbing up ladders as a group.”

He doesn’t answer again.

“A round of applause for Cloud, please.”

There’s only a single round of clapping that follows, and it’s delicate enough to only be one person.

And it dies quickly under its isolation.

Aerith sits awkwardly quiet for a moment. “I thought we were clapping…”

Cloud runs a hand through his hair, glaring at the wall behind the bar. “He was being sarcastic.”

“Oh.” Aerith thins her lips at Tifa, who smirks, and shifts to gazing at her glass of water. “Sorry, I wasn’t really listening…” Her words trail off into whispers and then into nothing.

And all Cloud can hear is the groan of a shifting bar stool that grates against the floor and it certainly doesn’t help his teeth.

* * *

“Are you tagging along for this one?”

“Am I getting paid for it?”

“Oh, come on, Cloud.” Tifa crosses her arms, though Cloud isn’t looking. “I can tell you’re starting to enjoy it.”

He looks up at that. “Enjoy what?”

“The company.” She licks at her lips. “You seem to get on with Jessie…”

The prosody of her words trails off openly, and the air between them hangs like Cloud should answer.

He doesn’t.

“And it’s not so bad hanging out with me.” Her follow-up is hasteful.

“Some of you are alright.” 

“‘Alright’...” Tifa whispers the word to herself in amusement. “And who’s the bad apple?”

His brow folds. “Who do you think?”

“Still with the ladder thing-”

It’s been days since that.

“Not _still_.” Cloud fumbles at the palm of a glove with the fingertips of another. “Just _once_.”

“Well, you can always forgive and forget.”

No answer.

Tifa can’t take much more of talking down to a brick wall. She takes a step closer, and then carefully kneels herself down to the gravel and comes to hover at eye-level in front of Cloud.

Close enough to see the reddened mark has turned a pale purple.

“Does it still hurt?”

“What?”

It’s hidden underneath scatterings of blonde hair, so Tifa reaches forward, once more like last time, and brushes the strands away to take a closer look with her own gloved fingertips.

And like last time, Cloud is quick to flinch away, and soon Tifa is touching cold air again.

“It’s fine.”

“I kicked you pretty hard, though.” Tifa sighs. “You would tell me if it hurt, wouldn’t you?”

Cloud glances away, but still nods. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” Her knees are starting to sting against the gravel, so she lifts herself up and taps Cloud on the shoulder. “Well, come on, then - not long until Barret wants us all rendezvoused.”

Cloud hums, and with a grunt of exertion, he presses his hands to his knees and stands up from his concrete seat.

* * *

The second time he has to grapple with the problems of a ladder, the ladder isn’t the problem.

He had been slow to catch up with the other two - Barret and Tifa again - and that means he had been relegated to the bottom of the ladder.

And Tifa had been the second quickest.

He tries not to, as far as his conscious can persuade, but his brain seems to subconsciously fabricate reasons to look and he keeps catching glances.

And sometimes he doesn’t even realise he has his head craned up until his slower conscience wonders why he’s such a pervert.

Barret speaks up in the silence. “Enjoying the ride, Cloud?”

“Yup.” He’s just looked up again, and he winces and forces his head back down. 

“Glad to hear it.”

It’s not all the time, only when she stretches one leg and pulls the other up that her skirt fails her-

There it is again; he’s just looked up again.

Damn it.

She has white on today.

No!

“And what’s your contingency if this ladder does fall?” Cloud feels undeserving of Tifa’s support.

“I land on a _Cloud_.”

Tifa hums amusedly. “And you wouldn’t land on me?”

“Never.” The sound of Barret’s one-hand-one-elbow climb stops, and he gives a pleased huff as he climbs to flat ground once more. “Ladder stops here, Cloud!”

Cloud nods, head faced forward and tilted slightly down. He’s reserved himself to closing his eyes, as a physical failsafe to the error of his impulsions, so he keeps himself out of line-of-sight lest one of them question what he’s up to.

Tifa grunts as she climbs up, and Cloud prepares to do so himself as he bases all he knows off of auditory cues.

And when his hand settles on a rung with a strip of tarmac across its stop - he counts his fortunes that the manufacturer had decided to indicate when the ladder stopped, he swings his head up and prepares to climb off.

But in his myriad of racing thoughts, he forgets to open his eyes _before_ he looks up.

And when he finally does, he finds Tifa already watching him with her own and she has a hand outstretched to help him up.

Curses.

He takes it, gratefully, though it’s a weaker grip than normal under the prospect that she’s noticed what he was doing.

And there’s no doubt she hasn’t. “What’s with the closed eyes?” Tifa smiles differently this time. Knowingly.

He lets go of her hand when he’s on level ground, and already strides forward as he stands up. “Just… meditating...”

But Tifa stands upright too, and she steps back and in front of Cloud’s path to keep him there. “Really?” Her tongue curls in between her lips. “On a ladder?”

He should’ve said he was scared of heights. Damn it.

He steps to the side, but she mirrors him again. “Mhm.”

Tifa hums, leering into him. “Okay.” She shrugs, and Cloud’s mind burns as she flattens out her skirt with deliberate nonchalance and stands aside. “If you insist.”

* * *

The third time Cloud has to grapple with the problems of a ladder, he’s not the problem.

“So, what are we doing here, again?”

“‘Bit of photography, ‘bit of sightseeing.” Barret gestures between the two tasks. “We need new photos of the guard rotations - seems they’ve changed.” His tone turns heartier. “And no better place for that than a decommissioned crane!”

“ _Decommissioned_ crane?”

“Well, _temporarily_ decommissioned - construction’s been halted.”

Jessie nods, and she keeps her eyes on the metal-grating floor that she treads upon. “I hope it wasn’t because of the crane.”

“And, here we go…” Barret gestures in presentation now. “Cloud’s favourite - a ladder.”

Cloud looks at the thing, and though it only stretches for ten or so metres - a relatively short one this time, as he looks up he notices the crane is dotted with platforms and accompanying ladders and he’s filled with dread.

“Great."

Barret is already beginning his climb. “Well, get to it.”

Cloud does, and before anyone else can follow, he takes the initiative and almost dashes onto the ladder’s rungs, taking a secure grip of two at shoulder level and beginning his own ascension.

Tifa mutters something from behind him, but it doesn’t reach him in full and he chooses to dismiss it as he follows Barret.

And by the way the ladder rattles only slightly twice - this one seems to be more stable than the others as well, Tifa and Jessie follow them close behind.

The climb is as gruelling on his palms as ever despite his gloves - he suspects they’ll be numb pieces of bone by the end of the crane, but at least he can look up this time.

“Oh.” And witness Barret stop in his tracks. “This one’s got a lock on it.”

“What?” 

“There’s a locked hatch on it.” Barret seems stumped, and he crams his right-handed attachment in between rungs to hold himself steady as he examines the padlock with his left. “Uh…”

Jessie calls from further down as she comes to a stop too. “What’s the problem?”

“There’s a lock!”

“Oh, good.” Jessie huffs. “This is going well.”

“Did we not know this beforehand?”

“No, Cloud.” Barret responds irritatedly. “As weird as it sounds, I didn’t study this _exact_ crane from head to foot the night before.”

“It’s a recon mission, that’s not weird - we’re meant to know this!”

“And I don’t approach recon missions the same way you approach women, lover boy.”

The snarl turns to embarrassed confusion. “What?”

“Can we get a move on?” Jessie unknowingly breaks up their whispered duel. “These rungs are really... _unergonomic_.”

Barret huffs, and then pulls his attachment out of the ladder to aim it at the lock. “Alright, here goes.”

“Hold on-!”

Cloud’s warning doesn’t reach Barret as he fires several times into their problem, which litters the hatch with holes and leaves it singeing, but the lock simply shakes under the inertia of the few rounds that hit it and remains unscarred.

Cloud pulls the shielding hand away from his face as the shooting stops. “Did you get it?”

“Not quite.”

“Did you get it?” Jessie sounds somewhat bewildered too.

“Not quite, Jessie!”

“Great.”

“Hold on.” Barret aims once more. “This lock’s real stubborn.”

“Please hurry up.” Jessie is somewhat out of sync with the happenings at the top of the ladder. “I’m getting tired of the scenery.”

He then holsters in confusion, turning to Jessie. “What scenery?”

Jessie doesn’t serve an answer, and soon enough the shooting starts back up again with a huff.

And when the rounds stop, all the lock does is singe mockingly in the once more returned calm.

“Hey, Cloud?”

He glances down, finding Tifa braced against the ladder again and staring into empty space. 

He can’t see Jessie.

“Hm?”

“Do you look up Tifa’s skirt too when you’re climbing these things?”

Tifa’s indifferent face turns a sudden distraught, and she’s torn from her ladder-sat stupor. “Jessie!”

Cloud nearly falls off the ladder. “Wha-?”

The legs above Jessie haphazardly press together, and a hand leaves a rung to pull a black skirt further down.

“What?” Jessie speaks with an innocent tone. “It’s hard not to look at it - and I’m not even into that.” She looks down herself, voice turning quieter. “Not like there’s anything else to be looking at.”

But before anyone can add anything the shooting starts back up, and then there’s a stark shatter of metal and a triumphant cheer.

“Ha-ha!” Barret punches the now unlocked hatch open with vigour. “That’s what we like to see!”

There was too much happening all at once. “They’re black today, by the way, Cloud.”

Tifa screams irritatedly. “Jessie!”

Cloud really needed to get off this ladder.

* * *

“Can I get you anything?”

Tifa stands behind the bar, in front of Cloud who sits atop a bar stool, bearing a smile and with her hands folded together on the surface.

She seems intent on satisfying her service quota.

“I’m alright.”

“Not a cocktail?”

“No.”

“How about just a beer, then?”

“I’m fine.”

“Water.”

Cloud shakes his head. 

“Are you hungry?” She leans forward, like she’ll be able to tell the closer they are. “I can make you some chips.”

“Really, I’m fine.”

Tifa cedes, standing back up and sighing. “Okay.”

Silence falls between them. Cloud is here simply for the concept that being in a social space would save him from just being in his apartment at this time. Alone.

“Is this because of the ladder thing?”

But, maybe alone was better. “What?” He wouldn’t be flustered if he was alone.

“You… not speaking to me.” Tifa doesn’t look at him. “Is it because of what Jessie said?”

“No…”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Cloud grits his teeth. This place seemed to make him do that. “I’m sure.”

“Okay.” Tifa rattles her fingers against the surface of the bar. “I’m sorry, by the way.”

Cloud looks up, eyes squinted. “What?”

“For… the ladder…” She shrugs. “I realise now it was probably just awkward for you to be beneath me.”

“Uh, well, don’t…” Cloud swallows, and his mind is starting to race again. “...I mean, don’t _you_ apologise - I’m sorry for looking up your skirt-”

The regret hits him blindingly.

“Wait, so...” The conversation’s balance tips. “...did you _actually_ look up my skirt, then?”

“Uh…” Cloud doesn’t know whether to smile apologetically or smile guiltily. “Accidentally…” Or not smile at all. He was lying, after all.

“Was it… was it more than once?”

“What?” He doesn’t know what his lips are doing now - they’re quivering in between an embarrassed smile and a distraught frown. “I… I don’t know…”

“Okay - sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.” Tifa clears her throat, shaking her head. “It… it doesn’t matter.” Now she seems guilty, too.

Was he missing something?

Well, he guessed he was missing his sanity.

“Can I have that cocktail, by the way?”

“Yeah!” Tifa nods furiously, and scrambles to search for the ingredients. “Sure.”

The fourth time Cloud has to grapple with the problems of a ladder, he's not even on one.


End file.
